Cleaning House
by polysgirl
Summary: Steph cleans house. Not babe, not cupcake, just there. Not your average housecleaning story. Try it! Oneshot, short.


Just something fun and oneshot I wrote last night. Not really Babe, Not really Cupcake, not relationship oriented, really. Takes place after TS.

I would like to thank Christie for saying something that randomly inspired me to write this. And Stayce for some editing help, being a sounding board, and helping me reword the pieces I didn't like J And, most importantly, for educating me to the existence and definition of Night Train.

Disclaimer: Own nothing except the plot J Most of this owned by the lovely JE.

Lindsay

Cleaning House 

"Aha!" I exclaimed, digging a pair of shoes out from under my bed. "Found em." I pushed myself to my knees and proceeded to sneeze. And sneeze. And sneeze. I waded through the dirty laundry on my floor, and then headed to the kitchen, shoes in hand. They needed to be washed and the kitchen sink would be perfect for that. Except for the pile of dirty dishes. Oh well, I'll just pile them on the...well, except for the mess of papers and gadgets on the counter. And table. Narrowing my eyes, I peeked into the living room.

Oops. It's been a busy couple of weeks, and I've only been home enough to eat and sleep. And throw my mail and any purchases on any available surface. Between catching skips, helping Ranger at Rangeman and in the apartment while he recovered from being shot, spending time with Joe - but not that much, we've both been busy, and distraction jobs, and talking to Julie who was dealing with some typical post traumatic issues. Ranger asked me to talk to her with him, so we spent most evenings in conference with her. I like the kid, she's a lot of fun. Well, like I was saying, between all of that, the apartment kind of got neglected. There was even mail on top of Rex's cage.

Yup. Time to clean. And today is going to be the day, come hell or high water.

I looked around the apartment and sighed. Where to start, where to start. Avoiding that decision, I meandered into the living room and picked through my CD's, selecting one to play. I put it on. Music blasted out. Ah yes. I went back to the kitchen and looked around again. I sighed. I had a feeling I'd be sighing a lot today. Godsmack just wasn't doing it as cleaning music. I went back to the living room and dug through my music again. Ah, Simon and Garfunkel. I'll try that. Cecelia was blaring in the background as I meandered back to the kitchen dancing and worming my shoulders away it. I looked at the table. Then I went back and put it on repeat.

"Cecelia, you're breakin' my heart" I shimmied. "You're shakin' my confidence daily,"

I twisted, and turned. "Oh Cecelia, I'm down on my knees," I wiggled my way towards my knees, squatting, before bounding up and worming my shoulders again. "I'm begging you please to come home.."

"I can make you beg." I heard behind me. I shrieked and leapt three feet in the air.

"Don't DO that." I yelled over Cecelia. I turned around and punched him in the stomach.

"What, exactly, are you doing?" Ranger asked. He didn't even have the decency to rub his stomach where I hit him, and my hand smarted.

"Cleaning." I told him.

Ranger raised an eyebrow. "Strangest kind of cleaning I've ever seen."

"I was getting to it." I defended. I did have a stack of mail in my hand, mail I'd grabbed off the table in the middle of my shimmy to my knees. I looked at it. I'd officially started cleaning. Huh. Cecelia was restarting, and Ranger's eyebrow shot even higher. "It's CLASSIC." I snarled at him, and shoved past him towards the counter to put my mail down. Hm... no room on the counter. Ok. I shoved stuff over on the counter and made a spot where I placed the handful of letters. There, a spot to pile mail.

Ranger walked over and shut the music off. "Hey!" I said.

"Babe." he sighed. He looked around. I looked too. The mess really was astounding. "You definitely do need to clean."

"Hey!" I said again. Only I was allowed to make that comment!

Ranger leaned against the kitchen door way, then picked up a piece of mail and peeked under it at Rex. "Don't forget under the bed. When you're done, come do mine. Bring the music and don't forget the dance moves. Night Train would be good." he told me.

I pointed to the door. "Out."

He flashed me a grin, then pulled a paper out of his pocket and dug around on the table for a minute for a pen. He scribbled something down and handed it to me, folded over.

"What's this?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

"A suggestion. Thank my mother." he told me, dark eyes dancing.

I glared, and shoved him towards the door. "Get out." I demanded. He tugged one of my curls, pulling me to him to kiss me warmly. His tongue touched mine, teasing, then he stepped away and backed out the door. "Babe." he said, grinning like a chesire-ranger. And he was gone.

I closed the door after him and went straight back to the CD player. Cecelia wasn't going to work anymore. Ranger spoiled the mood. I dug out some Aerosmith and set it to blasting. Nodding my head and singing along, I moved all of the piles on the table over to the counter, occasionally tossing something around the wall and onto the couch. It took a while, but finally the table was clear. I looked at it and smiled proudly.

Then I looked over to the couch, with its pile of shopping bags. And over at the counter, where leaning tower of...junk...wobbled precariously.

I was still eyeing the tower when the door clicked open and Joe walked in.

"Hey Cupcake." he yelled over the music. "What's going on?"

"Cleaning." I hollered back. He kissed me quickly, then made a beeline for the music. Silence fell like a heavy, wet blanket. "Hey!" I yelled. I really didn't get what was wrong with the music. Men. Yeesh.

"Can't talk to you with that crap blaring, Cupcake. Why're you cleaning?"

I looked around. "Can't you tell?"

"Yeah, but you never clean."

"I do today." I glared. "Either be nice, or go away."

"Guess you're too busy to spend the day with me, huh?" Joe asked, eyeing the bedroom.

"That's a disaster zone too. Gotta get this done, sorry!" I told him, and turned the music back on full blast. Joe rolled his eyes, kissed me quickly, and yelled that he'd call me tonight. He eyed the leaning tower on his way out the door, and raised one eyebrow before waving and shutting the door behind himself.

I eyed Stephanie's Pisa once more, and decided a new CD was in order. I went back and dug through my pile. Hm... Metallica. I stuck that in the player and stepped back. All of my CD's were now spread across the floor. Oh well. Have to clean in here too. I turned my back on them and headed back to the kitchen. I started on the tower, making neat stacks onto the table. Pretty soon I had no table left, and my neat stacks were getting progressively not-so-neat. Finally, I had a clean counter, and a disaster on the table. But hey, progress, at least it's not looking ready to fall over.

I moved onto the sink, making new piles. Then I eyed the dishes with distaste. Yuck. I'll leave those for last. I moved to the living room and looked at the shopping bags. Yeah. Those can all go to the bedroom. I hauled them all in and dumped them on the bed. Then I gathered up all of the dirty landry and threw it in the basket. I peeked under the bed. Yuck. I sighed, and went to look at the living room again. That can be done last. Ok, maybe the bathroom? I didn't make it past the door way before realizing I did NOT want to tackle the bathroom.

I migrated back to the table, and began to move stuff back to the counter. Then I realized that I should sort my drawers while I was at it, too. So I started at one end and dumped the contents of all of the drawers onto the counter. I stepped back and stared at it for a while. Guess it wasn't going to sort itself. I moved on to the little side table that Rex's cage sat on. I pulled the mail off of it, and went to dump it with the rest of the pile. Only problem was, I couldn't FIND the rest of the pile. Ok, nearest available surface. Ah, the couch. New mail spot. Maybe I should buy a mail rack once I get my next skip.

I started to re-organize the stuff on the counter back into the drawers, when I decided I really probably should get all the mail together first. So I started to move stuff from the table to the counter to get to the three different piles of mail underneath everything. I moved all of that to the couch and was looking at a hodge-podge of things left on the table, and disaster worse than the first on the counter. I was starting to think maybe I should see what Ranger's suggestion was.

First, though, I had to find the paper. I dug through the counter, moving some stuff back to the table again. Nope, not there. Hm... probably in with the mail? I thought it got placed on one of the mail stacks, once upon a time. I headed into the living room and took a brief break to switch CD's again. Might as well go back to Godsmack. I'll try it. Then I dug through the mail until I found the paper, near the bottom of the pile. I stood up gleefully, mail scattered at my feet. I opened the paper, praying for some miracle idea that would allow me to make some real progress.

I felt my face tighten. No way. No freaking way. "I am so not doing that." I growled, crumbling the note and throwing it into the mess on the floor. I'll get him for that, someday, too. I stalked back to the kitchen and glared at the counter. "I will get you clean." I snarled. I shoved stuff to the side and made a place for Rex's cage. He deserved a good cleaning too. That done, I moved all of the junk on his little table over to mine, and then put him back and gave him a grape. Rex backed out of his soup can, twitched his whiskers in thanks, stuff the grape into his mouth and rushed back inside. Ah, a happy hamster.

I turned back and stared at the table, which looked even worse than it did when I started. The counters were overflowing. I sighed. A pen fell off and rolled along the floor. I watched it as it rolled to the door and stopped with a small thunk. This is why I don't clean. I remember now.

I went back and peeked into the living room and it still looked like it did the last time. I was sure the bathroom and bedroom did too. I went back to the kitchen and moved a few more things around. I looked in the living room again.

"What do you think?" I asked Rex. He ignored me. No help there. He had the only surface I had successfully cleaned. I'd been at this three and a half hours. I thought about it for a while longer and gathered up the mail, leaving it in a pile on the couch again. And I caved. I looked at the paper again. I thought about Ranger. I stared at the paper and thought about Ranger some more. I went to the phone and dialed.

"Hi, Ella? It's Stephanie."


End file.
